Ship of Smoke and Steel

by Django Wexler

  “I know,” Meroe says.

  “You were the one who wanted to save everyone.” My throat feels thick.

  “I know.”

  There’s a long silence. Meroe’s hands are clenched tight in her lap, skin stretched across her knuckles.

  I let my voice drop. “You have to heal me.”

  She blinks. “I can’t.”

  “You need me up and fighting. I’ve seen how much Zarun and Karakoa can do, but it’s not enough. Another Melos adept—”

  “I can’t.” Meroe looks down at her clenched fists. “I tried healing people before we left, and I couldn’t do it. The power wasn’t there.”

  “What happened to Berun wasn’t your fault,” I say. “You told me you couldn’t do it, and I pushed you into it. That’s why it went wrong.”

  “You don’t know that,” Meroe says.

  “You healed me once.” I touch the line of blue marks across my face.

  “Maybe I just got lucky.”

  “I’ll bet on that luck again.”

  Meroe shakes her head. “If it … goes badly, then we won’t have any way to find the Garden.”

  “At the rate we’re losing fighters we’re not going to make it to the Garden.” I’d seen the wounded stumbling back from the head of the column, and the bodies pushed to the sides of the bridge.

  “I…” Meroe looks up at me. “You’d trust me to try? After … after everything?”

  I nod, wordlessly.

  She unclenches her fingers, one by one, and I can hear the joints pop.

  * * *

  Finding privacy in the midst of the tight-packed column isn’t easy, but fortunately Soliton’s twisted architecture provides. The camp sprawls out around a support pylon and its ring-shaped platform, and a spiral staircase wraps around it, leading to more ledges above and below. Meroe helps me negotiate the staircase down an agonizing couple of turns until we reach another, smaller platform, thickly overgrown with mushrooms and mold. Meroe tells Thora to wait at the top and not let anyone bother us.

  “There could be crabs down here, you realize,” Meroe says, as we take the steps one at a time.

  “I’ll handle them,” I manage, between gasps. It’s a joke, because I can barely support my own weight.

  Finally, we reach the ledge. There are no crabs visible, just a thick carpet of spongy gray-green mushrooms broken by towering spires of larger growths. Meroe helps me sit, and the fungus makes for a surprisingly comfortable surface. The noise of the camp above us is a distant buzz, and a little bit of lantern light outlines the platform and the bridges leading off from it. In every other direction, there are only the distant motes of the Center’s colored lights.

  “Okay.” I’m sitting across from Meroe, suddenly uncertain. The last time she did this, I was unconscious. “What should I do?”

  “Lie down, I guess.” Meroe tugs nervously at her hair. “You might pass out.”

  I lie down. “Do I need to undo these bandages?”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t need to see the injury. I can … feel it, I guess? It’s hard to explain.” She takes a deep breath. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

  I nod, quickly and decisively, trying not to betray the roil in my gut. Sitting by my side, ready to lay her hands on my skin, is a ghulwitch. Foul, unclean, the incarnation of filth.

  And if she gets it wrong, I’ll end up like Berun, bloating and bursting and screaming the whole time.

  But she won’t get it wrong.

  “Meroe?”

  She’s staring at her fingers, stretching them. “Hmm?”

  “Can I kiss you?”

  Silence. My heart stops.

  “You said you needed some warning,” I say, desperately. “But I thought”—no, don’t say just in case, rot rot rot; think of something else—“if you’re not ready, that’s fine, I just wanted to check it’s—”

  “Isoka.”

  “Yes?”

  “Please be quiet.”

  She leans over me, supporting herself with one hand. Our lips meet, a dry brush at first, and then more, her mouth opening against mine, hot breath tickling my skin. I push against her, desperately, craning my neck when she starts to pull away. The wound in my chest gives a stab of pain, and I fall back to the deck.

  Ow. Rot.

  “You can do this,” I tell her.

  In spite of her hollow eyes and gaunt cheeks, Meroe is smiling. “I can do this.”

  She puts her hands on me, and does it.

  If you ever have the chance to be awake while a ghulwitch heals you, I do not recommend you take it. A gentle heat throughout my body contracts to burning fever where I’m torn and bleeding. I feel something move inside me, as though there were rats under my skin, burrowing around and looking for an escape. The heat changes, becoming something else, raw energy that stimulates every nerve at once, simultaneously orgasm and agony, sensation too strong to touch, like staring directly at the sun. It lasts for roughly ten million years, and then stops. I slowly become aware that I am still breathing.

  “Isoka?” Meroe’s voice is distant and timid.

  “Am I…” My own voice sounds like a stranger’s. Blood roars like the ocean in my ears. “Am I about to explode?”

  “I don’t think so,” Meroe says. “I think it worked.”

  I open my eyes. Meroe is leaning over me, looking worried. I put one hand on my stomach, worm it down under the bandage, to where I would expect to find the ragged edge of the wound. There is only smooth skin, slicked with leftover blood.

  “How do you feel?” Meroe says.

  The answer is, as though I’d been struck by lightning, full to the brim with a strange, crackling energy. I sit up—too fast, my head spins—wrap my arms around her, and kiss her again. The energy seems to flow into her, too, lighting her up from the inside. She kisses me back with the same desperation I felt, moments or millennia before. My hands are sliding down her flanks, and hers are fumbling under my shirt, undoing first the bandages and then my chest wrap.

  “Meroe.” I speak in fragments, between gasps. “I don’t. Exactly. Know what I’m doing.”

  “I have. Mmm. An idea.” When I pull back for a moment and raise an eyebrow, she gives me an innocent look. “I had … instructional books.”

  “Of course you did.” I grin, and kiss her again, and pull her close. “You’re a very strange princess.”

  26

  “Hagan?” I keep my voice soft. Meroe is lying beside me, snoring gently, one brown shoulder protruding from where my shirt serves as makeshift blanket. “Are you there?”

  Eddica energy flows in a thick stream through the pillar behind us, stronger down here near the Deeps than it was back in the Upper Stations. I’m hoping that means it’ll be easier for Hagan to talk to me, but I’m still surprised when he actually appears, gray motes drifting out to form the approximate shape of a human and then slowly sharpening into detailed features. It apparently surprises him, too, because he looks down at his hands with exactly the goofy smile he used to wear. Something inside my chest clenches.

  “Hi,” he says. His voice is clearer now, with only a touch of the strange distortion. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “So far.” I sit up a little, tugging the blanket. “I should have listened to you earlier.”

  He gives an awkward shrug. “I’m not sure I would have listened to me, in your position.”

  My heart is beating fast. This is the most coherent he’s been, by far, and I have to ask. “Hagan, how did you get here?” I hesitate. “Do you know that you’re…”

  “Dead?” He nods. “Honestly I wish I could tell you. I don’t remember anything from before you came aboard, and even then not much until you found that node in the Deeps. How did you get here?”

  “Kuon Naga,” I say, and he winces. “And after I found that … place?”

  “It felt like … waking up.” He frowns, groping for words. “Or going from being nearly awake to wide-awake, maybe. Ever sin
ce you came aboard, I was aware, but it felt like I didn’t have enough strength to do anything, not even think much. Then when you got near the node, suddenly I could … feel that there was a … a larger space nearby, and I moved into it.” He shook his head, frustrated. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “You stopped an angel. And you showed me the way out. How?”

  “I could feel it trying to touch your mind. It found out what you wanted, and then decided you weren’t … allowed here, I guess. I tried to stop it, and…” He looked down at his hands. “I’m sorry. I know what I did, but I don’t have the words for it.”

  “It’s all right,” I say. “When you say it, you mean the Soliton itself? The ship?”

  “I … think so. It’s everywhere, anywhere the energy touches.”

  “Is it really alive?”

  “I don’t know. It can … make decisions, I think, but it doesn’t feel like a person.”

  Blessed. There’s a hundred more questions I want to ask, but the stream of power is visibly thinning. I clear my throat.

  “We’re almost there, I think. To the Garden. But I need you to show me the rest of the way.”

  “I’ve been getting it ready.” Hagan raises one hand, and a ball of twisting gray motes materializes. Once again, he tosses it at me, and it sinks into my chest, leaving only a single twitching thread of gray on the outside. “You’re right; it’s not far now. But you have to hurry, and there are so many of them.…”

  “We’ll make it.” He’s growing dimmer. “Hagan, why are you helping me?”

  He raises one eyebrow, in a well-remembered, infuriating expression. “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “You know, don’t you? That I…”

  “That you killed me?” He nods, translucent now. “I remember.”

  “Then…”

  “And I understand why.” He flicks his eyes up at the platform above us. “You’re bringing them all to the Garden. You didn’t have to.”

  I look down at Meroe’s peaceful features. “I know.”

  “I always thought you were … better than the life we lived, in Kahnzoka.” When I looked up, Hagan has vanished, but his voice is still a whisper in my ear. “I’m glad you got the chance to prove me right.”

  My throat is thick, and I blink away tears. The flow of Eddica energy dwindles to a trickle, and then vanishes. For a long time, I sit in silence, until Meroe stirs and opens her eyes.

  “Were you talking to him?” she says. “The ghost?”

  I nod. “He says the Garden isn’t far, but there are a lot of crabs in the way.”

  “It’ll help to have you on the front line.”

  She yawns and sits up. My shirt falls away, leaving her uncovered, not that it covered very much to begin with. I drink in the glorious sight of her, the soft curves. I can feel her staring back.

  “What are we going to tell them?” I ask. It’s been preying on my mind.

  “About what?”

  “About what happened here.” I gesture to myself. “We come down together, and now I’m healed. Someone is going to guess what you are.”

  Meroe shrugs, smiling. “You were already mostly healed. Whatever you took down in the Deeps must have had a lasting effect. You were just worn-out, and then I dragged you down here to rut.”

  I snort a laugh, then hesitate. “You don’t mind? Telling everyone about … this.”

  Meroe looks at her hands. “I’m not going to shout from the rafters about it. But … gods, Isoka, this is what I want. My father can go to the Rot.”

  I lean in and kiss her. For a moment, I think we’re going to start all over again, but with an effort Meroe pulls herself away.

  “They’re waiting for us,” she says.

  “Rot.” I sigh. “If we survive—”

  “Indeed,” Meroe says. “Let’s survive.”

  * * *

  Meroe had stuffed the outfit I’d worn to the officers’ audience into the bottom of her bag. I change into it now, leaving my half-shredded, bloodstained things behind. Tightening the straps, I take deep breaths, reveling in the sensation of stretching without pain. This time, there aren’t even marks on my skin to show where the wounds had been.

  Of course, as Meroe said, it’s possible we’ve just gotten lucky. Just because her powers have saved me twice doesn’t mean they won’t turn me into a bloated monstrosity the next time. I can’t get careless.

  Still, I feel good. Great, even, the mad charge of the healing blending into postcoital satisfaction and a night’s rest, leaving me with a bouncy energy. Once I’m dressed, I ignite my blades, listening to them part the air with a soft hiss, and feel the heat from my armor. I dismiss one blade, and try envisioning an opening flower on that arm, as Zarun recommended. To my surprise, it works. The armor dims around the rest of my body, leaving me with a round shield of green light. I practice shifting back and forth several times, but it already feels natural.

  I wonder if, had the Immortals caught me young, they’d have taught me these tricks in the Legions. In the Sixteenth Ward, the raw power of being a Melos adept had always been enough. Only on Soliton had I realized how much there could be to learn about a power that had always felt instinctive. If we survive, I have practicing to do.

  If we survive. Like Meroe said, let’s survive.

  The officers are surprised to see me at the morning council. Zarun and Karakoa both sport bandages, and I recognize the smell of Sister Cadua’s powerburn poultices. The Scholar looks gaunt, his cheeks hollowing out, his cane tapping nervously. Shiara seems untouched, her lip paints and makeup still perfect, but underneath even she is showing the strain.

  “We’re almost there,” I say, as I join their circle. “But there’s a lot of crabs in the way.”

  The Scholar’s eyes widen. He can see the thread of intangible gray energy that spools out from my chest, leading into the darkness of the Center. He stares at me for a moment, and I raise an eyebrow.

  “That’s certainly good to hear,” Shiara says. “Morale has … not been good.”

  “I know,” I tell her. “I’ll be joining the vanguard today.”

  “You seemed pretty badly hurt yesterday,” Zarun says. “Though I hear your actions were quite heroic.”

  I tap my face, the blue lines. “I heal fast, it seems.”

  “Indeed.” Zarun’s eyes are unreadable.

  “In that case,” Karakoa says, “I recommend that I take rear guard. We are spread very thin.”

  I glance at Meroe, who has come up behind me. She nods.

  “If there’s anyone not in the hunting packs who can touch Sahzim,” she says, “I’d like to gather them just behind the vanguard. They should be able to tell us if any more crabs are hiding under the bridges.”

  Everyone nods in approval. Wielders of Sahzim, the Well of Perception, were usually scavengers rather than hunters, but this was a good way to use their talents.

  “We should move as soon as we can,” Meroe says. “We’re not sure how much ground there is left to cover.”

  “I’ll get my people started,” Zarun says.

  The others disperse to their various tasks. I give Meroe a grin as she goes back among the column, then turn to Zarun, who is watching me with what looks like concern.

  “What?” I ask him.

  “You’re certain you’re all right?” he says. “It’s not going to do morale any good to have the Deepwalker collapse from blood loss in the middle of a fight.”

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  “If you say so.” He stretches, wincing. “I wish I was. It’s been a long time since I had to push this hard.”

  For a moment, I feel guilty. Meroe can’t help everyone. Even if she could, half of them would probably go into hysterics at the thought of being touched by a ghulwitch, and she’d end up getting lynched.

  If he’s feeling a little pain, though, Zarun seems hale enough, running through a series of exercises to loosen sore muscles. By the time he’s done, other fighters of the vanguard are
gathering. Thora and Jack are there, and other pack leaders and hunters I recognize from Crossroads. For the most part, I don’t know their names, but every one of them knows me, and I hear a low buzz of conversation as they realize I’m going to fight with them.

  I don’t need Meroe to tell me that now is the time to say a few words. But I still don’t have much to say.

  “We’re nearly there,” I tell them. “We should reach the Garden today, if we can push through the crabs. Let’s get this finished.”

  Not much, but it seems to serve. “Deepwalker!” someone shouts from the back. The others take it up, one by one. “Deepwalker! Deepwalker!”

  Zarun gives me a sardonic glance. I grin at him, raise one hand, and ignite my blade with a crackle-hiss and a flash of green.

  * * *

  At first we cut through the crabs like a hot knife through butter.

  For the first hour, I barely have to work at all. Tartak bonds lock the crabs in place, keeping us safe from their sudden leaps, while a rolling wave of Myrkai fire blasts them to cinders. Zarun and I walk in front of the advancing line, cutting down the occasional larger crab that emerges from the firestorm maddened and burning. Behind us, the column advances, step by step, and behind them the rear guard fights its own battle.

  After falling into such an easy rhythm, the arrival of the first blueshell is a rude shock. The huge crab bulls through the bolts of flame like so much hot air. Light blue Tartak bonds snatch at its legs, slow it down, but they stretch and snap in the face of its prodigious strength. Its two huge claws strain toward us, mouth full of sword-tentacles writhing.

  “You can break its armor, can’t you?” Zarun says, as the thing strains closer.

  I nod. “But last time, I had to hit it in the brain to bring it down.”

  “We don’t need to be quite so ambituous. Left claw first. Come on!”

  He jogs forward, looking almost cheerful. I follow, warily. The monster shifts, bearing down on him, and with a wave of his hand he generates a Tartak binding holding its right claw in place. The other claw swings toward him, and Zarun parries with his Melos shield, the impact driving him back a pace in a maelstrom of green sparks. He leans into the shield, pushing against the crab with all his weight.